Poole - round the island - only once !

One week to go before the GP14 National Championships, and I'm down in Poole for some last-minute Sea experience (waves and tides).

Poole was the first event I ever "travelled" to, and is a social event for people from the Welsh Harp Sailing Club.

This year, I had Lucy crewing for me.

Saturday Round-the-island is a team event. We were randomly allocated to teams of three. The best two scores count towards the team. There are usually two races: one clockwise, and the other anti-clockwise. This year, we were drawn alongside Roger and Szymon from the Harp, and James & Richard from PaperCourt. A great team to be part of.

The first race was started with the tide flowing in, so our logic was to start at the port side of the line, going into the main channel - the tide would give us some extra momentum. It seemed like a good idea, although we had second thoughts when we realised there was only one other boat with us, and the rest of the fleet was on the starboard side of the line ! Nevertheless, we were in the top half of the fleet by the windward mark.

The course was clockwise round Brownsea island, so we had a long spinnaker run, where I keep us inshore, to negate the tide pushing against us. Some great spinnaker work by Lucy, and we kept near the shore and overtook a couple of boats, keeping Roger and James in sight all the time. We were making good progress.

As we got near to the far end of Brownsea Island, Lucy told me the advice she had been given - stay clear of the lea of the Castle. We had a gaggle of boats behind us. I saw Roger bear away from the lea of the Castle. I stayed on. Maybe we would be OK?  We slowed down, by which time it was too late - we were caught in the lea of the castle. Boats started overtaking us. And more. We tried the 'kite, but to no avail. We ended up going backwards. The Brownsea ferry told us they were moving out in five minutes. We weren't sure we could clear the area in time.

We finally go clear, with the entire fleet (apart from 3 boats) disappearing away ahead of us.

The rest of the race was a matter of trying to catch up, and fending off the boats trying to catch us.

After rounding the far end of the island, we flew the spinnaker round "Piccadilly" and on home, arriving in 16th place.

The rain was coming in hard, and the wind dropping as we got back to PYC.

The afternoon did not look promising with the rain and no wind. At three PM the call was made - racing abandoned for the rest of the day.

They totalled up the scores from the first race; allowing for our discard, Roger & James had scored third place for the team. So Lucy & I had a third place prize to share with everyone.

I was delighted for Lucy - great bit of work was rewarded. We both had a laugh on account that we had benefited from Roger & James efforts! But we'll take it, with pleasure !

Tomorrow is the Open Event itself. Looking forward to it - the weather is forecast to be strong !!